NEW YORK (PIX11) – New York City has one of the largest Asian American communities in the United States, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But how well do you know the story of the Chinese in America?
During AAPI Heritage Month, PIX11 News visited a fascinating museum in Chinatown to learn more.
On the northern edge of Chinatown, in a renovated building at 215 Centre Street, lies the Museum of Chinese in America, otherwise known as MoCA. At 50,000 square feet, it is the largest institution dedicated to the Chinese American experience in this country.
PIX11 News was given a private tour by MOCA President Michael Lee.
For this third-generation Chinese American, the first room in the museum is personal as it chronicles the earliest waves of Chinese Immigrants.
“One grandfather who bought papers from a man named Lee, and that was already his name, so he got to keep his name,” Michael Lee, MOCA President, told PIX11 News.
A wall features how the Chinese helped build the railroads across this country from West to East. Also, the history of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and racist posters from the last century.
There’s a wall of innovators, including the creator of Bing cherries, AhBing, and a room devoted to Chinese American influences in movies, such as Anna Mae Wong, considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood.
“She was picked to be in a film in Canada, and she had a hard time getting back into the country,” Lee told PIX11 News.
One of the newest exhibits here at the Museum Of Chinese In America is called Heaven and Earth, the blue map of China.
“The land was tied to the heavens,” Lee told PIX11 News. “The Chinese felt strong national pride in their land’s connection to the stars,” he added.
The last room on the tour is called Magazine Fever, Gen X, Asian American periodicals in the 1980s and 90s, when Asian American identity was finally recognized as a demographic.
So, who should visit this museum?
“Everybody interested in Asian culture, everybody interested in learning about the history of our people here should come to this museum,” Lee told PIX11 News.
MOCA is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
English (US) ·